1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to apparatus and a method for using the apparatus for planning human dietary intake and for controlling such intake to achieve dietary goals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In 1988, then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, M.D. issued the first Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health and it highlights the urgent need in America and the world for regulating dietary excesses and imbalances for better health. According to the report, dietary factors play a prominent role in five of the ten leading causes of death for Americans. This Report has been compared to the 1964 Surgeon General's report on smoking, but one fundamental difference has been observed: food is necessary for good health and cannot be avoided. Rather, it is necessary to control and regulate dietary intake, taking into account personal preferences as well as the substantial body of scientific knowledge about diet and its effects on health, to achieve better health. The Report goes on to spell out specific recommendations but does not provide a mechanism for incorporating these changes in the daily or weekly menu planning process.
In the field of diet, innumerable books have been written, computer programs have been written and, with alarming regularity, new fads have come and gone. One computer program called MENU MINDER can be used to plan and track daily and weekly menus. Deal a Meal, which appears to be more than a fad, is an exchange based means for controlling dietary intake.
Several patents disclose various means for planning and regulating dietary intake. U.S. Pat. No. 2,188,744 discloses a device for selecting and displaying the courses for a specific meal. U.S. Pat. No. 2,337,594 discloses decks of menu cards. Each card contains indicia representing an element of a meal and each card has an opening which is registrable with one or more of the indicia provided on other cards so that a stack of cards can be assembled with indicia from each of the cards being visible from the top of the stack.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,747,299 entitled "Nutritive Evaluating Food Item Selector" discloses a wheel device with a data disc and a masking disc secured together so that they can be rotated relative to one another. Openings in the masking disc are registrable with indicia provided on the data disc so that nutritional information for a particular food item can be easily determined.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,681,857 discloses a device for monitoring the properties of selected foods. The device comprises a board, a plurality of strips with indicia representing a food and nutritional information therefor and means for attaching the strips to the board.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,977,106 discloses a wheel device with multiple food, calorie, cholesterol and nutritional information indicia on a data disc. A masking disc can be rotated so that indicia for a particular food register with openings in the mask disc.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,316 discloses diet control apparatus which is exchange based. The apparatus comprises food tokens for several categories of foods, containers corresponding with meals for housing food tokens for such meals, a food chart with serving size information for a number of foods in each category, a container for receiving "spent" food tokens and, optionally, a container for the other elements of the apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,650,218 discloses a method and apparatus for controlling caloric intake. The method and apparatus are exchange based, and the apparatus comprises cards provided with exchange tabs and these can be tailored to a particular dietary goal.